For me, one of the bigger GDC surprises was the Mortal Kombat arcade stick. Fellow video game writer Eric Wittmerhaus was raving about the controller and he piqued my interest about it. Could it really be that great? When I… Continue Reading →

For me, one of the bigger GDC surprises was the Mortal Kombatarcade stick. Fellow video game writer Eric Wittmerhaus was raving about the controller and he piqued my interest about it. Could it really be that great? When I saw the controller firsthand, I was stunned. This thing is quality, but it’s also enormous and heavy as hell. I feel sorry for the GameStop people who’ll have to stock it and bring it out to waiting customers.

After getting some hands-on with the controller, there were three things to note about the Mortal Kombat arcade stick:

1) It uses Happ parts. What does this mean? Well, these are the sticks and buttons you used to mash in the old American arcades. The joysticks are the baseball bat style and the buttons are super large and concave. Putting hands on the controls brings me back. It’s instant nostalgia for those who grew up in thumbing nickels or quarters into arcade cabinet beat-em ups.

2) The manufacturer, PDP, almost begs you to mod this using a latch that opens up the stick. From there, you can see its gnarly insides. (They’re protected by a clear plastic cover to prevent, ahem, tampering.) You can put other things within the arcade stick. It seems like a good place to hide the actual game or other M-rated titles. The rest of the stick is impressive with parts being made of wood most likely. Again, it’s damn heavy. It’s also built for playing on your lap with a memory foam cushion on the bottom to make comfortable.

3) NetherRealm Studios will have to make some arcade stick specific controls because some moves are just impossible to do with the current configuration. That’s one of the things I noticed when playing with it. The LT and RB buttons are inconveniently up near the guide buttons and to pull off X-ray move, players have to awkwardly press RT and the RB buttons together. That means stretching out your hand so that it reaches both at the same time. Other than that, the controller works well. The buttons are a little springy, but I didn’t have much problems doing special moves.